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ADDRESS 



B£LIY£RED BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN WHIG AND CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETIES 



OF THE 



COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 



JUNE m, 1846. 



Br ALEXANDER E. BROWN. 



PRINCETON, 

FEINTED BY JOHN T. ROBINSON. 

1846. 



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Extract from the Minutes of the American Whig Society, Jmie 24th, 1846. 

Resolved, That the thanks of this Society be tendered to 
Alexander E. Brown, Esq., for his able and eloquent address 
delivered yesterday, and that he be requested to furnish a copy 
for publication. 

W.C.ALEXANDER, 

ASHBEL GREEN, y Commitfee. 

DANIEL ELLIOT. 



Extract from the Minutes of the Cliosophic Society, June 24th, 1846. 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented to 
Alexander E. Brown, Esq., for the able and interesting ad- 
dress delivered by him yesterday before the American Whig 
and Cliosophic Societies ; and that a committee be appointed 
to request a copy for publication. 

Committee, Prof. Maclean and Joseph Annin, Esq. 



ADDRESS. 



The contrast between the spirit of earlier ages of 
antiquity and that of the present age, is both startling 
and interesting. The energies of the one, seem to 
have been directed solely toward promoting the inte- 
rests of the few. The other, spontaneously pours its 
blessings on the living and moving mass of mankind. 
The one, a dark and sullen stream whose waters, un- 
suited and unrefreshing to the common lip, flash back 
no sunbeam to cheer the common eye. The other, 
clear and sparkling with the beams of truth ; bearing 
in safety on its bosom the destinies of millions ; water- 
ing in its course meadows, the poor man's wealth, 
and reflecting on its bank the stately mansion, the 
rich man's pride ; and speaking in notes of liquid 
gladness, the language of hope for all. 

We stand beside the gigantic monuments of ancient 
Egypt. We examine the mystic characters with 
which they are covered. We are astonished at their 
proportion, and we inquire for their uses and the 
means of their structure. All save the voice of con- 



jecture is silent. The arid desert gives not even an 
answering echo back. But reasonable conjecture tells 
us they are monuments of an age when the energies 
of the many were tasked to the death to minister to 
the pride and avarice of the few. That each of these 
hieroglyphics probably occupied the life-time of an 
immortal being, whose soul knew not the privilege of 
straying beyond the narrow circle of his employment. 
That those ponderous blocks of granite, of which they 
are composed, were altars of sacrifice upon which 
overtasked and overburdened labour stretched itself, 
hopelessly and despairingly to die. That it is a mon- 
ument not only of regal power, but of human suffering 
and human oppression ; and that when the task was 
completed, and the ring of the lash and the shriek of 
agony had died upon the gale, the unburied remains 
and whitening bones of its artificers were a fit garni- 
ture of the mausoleum of irresponsible power. This 
is but a single illustration ; but the little that remains 
to us of the history of that age by no means de- 
tracts from its force. 

Descending the stream of time to the days of ancient 
Greece and Rome, we find the condition of the masses 
somewhat, though not very materially improved. 
Mind, for the chosen few, had begun to unfold its 
treasures. Bright spirits arose to enlighten the age ; 
but to the mass of their countrymen they were but as 
stars whose mystic characters were to them unintelli- 



gible> that cheered not their humble homes, and that 
warmed not their cheerless hearts. They passed 
away, but little regretted by the multitude for whose 
benefit I hey had done nothing, and by an age by 
which they were not understood. But they still sur- 
vive and are as household words with us, and their 
labours are better appreciated in our day than they 
were by those for whose benefit they should have 
laboured. Strange that those parchment scrolls — which 
the barbarian cast aside with contempt when he tore 
the canvass of the painter, and threw down and de- 
stroyed the noblest works of the sculptor's chisel, in 
his search for plunder — should even now aid in wield- 
ing the sceptre of mind over a land of which the Athe- 
nian sage never dreamt, and where the Roman eagle 
never winged its flight — that the thunders of Demos- 
thenes should have been heard re-echoed on the floor 
of Congress in tlie days of our Revolution, and the 
harp of the Mantuan bard still pour its sweet notes 
among the wild forest glades of our own free Colum- 
bia. But they were in advance of their age, and 
therefore not appreciated. No blame to them, but the 
higher honour. That age called not for the cultiva- 
tion of the common mind. Man was considered then 
in mass as a physical machine, not as a moral and 
accountable being. The fierce legionary could per- 
form his work of blood ; the plodding labourer could 
perform his daily task of drudgery; the bondsman 



8 

could fan the slumbers of his master, without th^ aid 
of education ; and of course it was not given to them. 
Thus will it ever be where the glorious soil of the 
intellect is uncultivated. There will abuses flourish 
in all their rankness. There will the many toil, and 
labour, and die for the benefit of the few. 

Such has been the history of the past. Turn we 
for one moment to the contrast presented by the pre- 
sent age. Men build for themselves now monuments 
more enduring than the massive piles of antiquity. 
But they build them of words that are common to a 
whole nation. Distinct too from each other, though 
formed from materials which all daily employ. Dedi- 
cated not to the use of one, but for ameliorating the 
condition of all. Undying records of the times ; whose 
uses and history can never be lost in any future anti- 
quity, however remote ; for they are imbued with the 
spirit of that holy truth, which by the will of the Al- 
mighty is destined to be unchangeable and eternal. 
Yes, whilst the scriptures endure the best literature 
of our day will never want a key and interpreter. We 
carve not the marble block into the semblance of the 
human form with a skill that embodies all physical 
perfections and imbues it with a beauty almost divine, 
but in their stead we point to our living statues which 
the genius of the present age has roused from their 
death-like slumbers. We point to the youth rescued 
from ignorance, and taught to feel and know the di- 



vinity within him ; his kindling eye raised to the 
heavens, his ear intent to catch the language of in- 
struction, his bosom swelling with delight as the mys- 
teries of science are unfolded to his mind, his timid 
step ascending the hill of fame, her chaplet on his 
head, happy in the present, with a soul overflowing 
with gratitude for the hopes of an hereafter. 

These are the statues of the present age. Choose 
ye between the living and the dead. We rear no 
obelisks, we carve no gigantic monsters to guard over 
the desolations of the wide-spread desert. But in 
their stead we point you to the swart artizan, govern- 
ing with unerring skill those tremendous engines of 
modern times, whose powers render the storied feats 
of Hercules and the Titans, seem like the exploits of 
the pigmies ; before which the most enduring monu- 
ments which have defied the shocks of time would be 
crumbled into dust. In former ao^es that man would 
have been a god ; in the present he is an educated 
mechanist. Choose ye between the torpid endurance 
of physical power, and the active energy of enlightened 
mind acting upon matter. 

We build no temples to unknown gods, rich with 
all the graces and wonders of architecture. No gor- 
geous mausoleums in which decayed mortality may 
be mocked by the durability of the structure that sur- 
rounds it. We consecrate no halls where the effigies 
of the great of departed ages stand in marble silence, 



10 

whose stony eyes view not the train of their worship- 
pers, whose ears drink not in the sweet tributes paid 
to their memories, whose Ups reply not to their saluta- 
tions. But in their stead temples to the living God, 
built as a labour of love, where all may enter upon 
the platform of humble equality, where the wisest may 
learn, and the most ignorant can understand. School- 
houses, where the energies of the youthful mind are 
aroused and rightly directed into action, and where 
the boy is prepared to become the enlightened man. 
Colleges, where the garnered treasures of the mighty 
dead are collected and preserved; where the wild 
war-harp of Homer is strung anew, and thrills each 
bosom as it echoes through the halls ; where the lyre 
of Horace falls sweetly on the ear, and Virgil kindles 
the warm ilame of poesy in the bosom of the future 
bard ; where Cicero excites the passions and corrects 
the taste, and Demosthenes touches as with fire the 
lips of the future orator. These, and other of the relics 
of antiquity, culled by the careful hand of sages, who 
have devoted their lives to the sweet and willing task, 
are administered to the youthful mind. Learning 
unfolds her ample stores, whilst the mind is adorned 
by the study of the classics. It is invigorated by ap- 
plication to the exact sciences, and is trained for future 
efficiency by strict attention to those branches which 
conduce to practical utility. Above all the Bible is a 
class book, and whilst the mind is prepared for the 



11 

purposes of earth, the soul is trained for heaven and 
eternity . 

These are the monuments of the present age, and 
strongly do they contrast with those of former days. 
Do we ask the reason of the difference ? It is found 
in the fact that the former age was one of mere physi- 
cal force, whilst the present is the age of moral power 
and religious influence. Under these influences the 
oppressions of the many, by the few, are fast disap- 
pearing : for the intellectual man resists and repels 
where the mere physical being only writhes beneath 
the lash; the educated multitude turn their flashing 
eyes and broad hands upon the oppressors who would 
drive them, and hurl them to the dust, where the 
ignorant masses of former days rendered a silent and 
sullen submission. 

Such, my countrymen, is the history of our own 
bright land, the best illustration of the spirit of the 
age; whose every page is marked by the mighty 
workings of popular education. The power of educa- 
ted masses is to be seen in every step of our country's 
advancement, from the landing of the first emigrants 
upon our shores ; the declaration and achievement of 
our independence; the springing up of our cities; our 
triumphs in peace ; our triumphs in war ; aye, down 
to the very day when on the Rio Grande's banks, the 
countless hordes of ignorant invaders fled in dismay 
before the thunders of the red artillery whose light- 



P2 

nings were directed by educated freemen. Ours is a 
land where the public mind is educated up to a level 
with their rights. All powers are wielded for the 
benefit of the many, and not for that of the few, and 
consequently will never want for defenders against 
either foreign or domestic foes. This then -brings me 
to a subject upon which I will beg leave to detain you 
for a few moments. 

The influence which Seminaries of Learning 

MUST ever exercise UPON CiVIL LIBERTY. 

The aspirations of the youthful heart are ever for 
freedom. Scarcely has the thought sprung sponta- 
neously in the mind, ere the springing step is ready to 
bound along the path which fancy sketched, and the 
ready hand to carry out the scheme which valour 
planned. He sees the waves breaking in hoarse 
surges on the shore, and he longs to breast them. He 
hears the war of elements and he longs to dare them,' 
and almost murmurs at the roof which protects him 
from their rage. In frame a boy, in will he is a giant. 
Neglected, the young vine would shoot and grow in 
profitless and rank luxuriance. Trained and pruned 
by the paternal hand of culture, its form becomes 
strong and graceful, and it is loaded with the clusters 
of a generous vintage. It is thus that by regulating 
and condensing the energies of our glorious youth, 
that colleges become the nurseries of civil liberty. 



13 

These are the offerings which our literary institutions 
annually lay upon the altar of our common country. 
In our Colleges and Universities, where mind is free 
and energy unfettered, the collision of ardent and 
youthful minds must cause the flame of freedom to 
burn with redoubled brightness. The youth read the 
histories of nations suffering and oppressed, and now 
passed away forever. They read of an ignorant and 
uninformed populace goaded on by intense physical 
suffering, rushing like a turbid torrent, and sweeping 
away in their course the palace of the monarch and 
the hovel of the laborer ; desolating alike the park of 
the noble and the vineyard of the peasant ; commenc- 
ing a revolution for liberty in its widest sense in 
anarchy and blood, and ending it by submitting tno a 
iron despotism. And the pale student starts from his 
volume and asks, how shall I best serve my country ? 
how avert from her these fearful evils ? And reason 
answers him, by holding (as it is your duty as an 
educated man to do) the torch of religion and lamp of 
learning before your countrymen ; by forwarding the 
cause of education among the masses, so that when 
Columbia marshals her hosts against either domestic 
or foreign oppression, no man in all that wide spread 
multitude, but shall be not only an acting but a think- 
ing and reasoning being ; prompt to understand his 
rights and astute to perceive that where anarchy be- 
gins, liberty ends. 



14 

This duty to their coimtrj our Colleges have thus 
far nobly performed. But to what extent? Count if 
you can the noble trees which spring from seeds mys- 
teriously floating through the air. Calculate the 
flowers that the summer shower and the summer sun 
cause to spring in glad luxuriance from the generous 
earth, and you will be yet far from being able to esti- 
mate the benefits which a right-minded, highly-edu- 
cated man may produce on a thinking community. 
How do the prejudices of olden time vanish before his 
touch. How strange and yet how palpable the secrets 
he discloses of the arcana of nature. How subtle and 
yet how practical the application of the secrets of 
science to the common purposes of life. How does 
collision and intercourse with such a mind beget in- 
quiry upon subjects never before thought of How 
rapidly is search prosecuted after new ideas. And 
intellect once awakened thus, when shall it cease to 
labour? Never. 

In Europe, too, the Universities have ever been the 
nurseries of liberal sentiments. Witness the ready 
sympathy of the German Universities with Republi- 
can France, ere she revolted humanity by her deeds 
of blood; and their gallant opposition to Imperial 
France, when her legions threatened to destroy the 
little of liberty that Germany still possessed. Then 
did the professor and the student, throwing aside their 
books, array themselves for the battle-field. Then 



15 

did the heroic Korner — he of the lyre and the sword-— 
wake the wide land with the notes of freedom's min- 
strelsy; and finally pouring forth his blood on the 
battle-field, leave in the galaxy of genius one bright 
star the less. 

But we may be told that in France learning was 
with the revolutionists, and was responsible therefore 
for at least some part of their excesses. Admit that 
the cyclopedists were among those who aided in that 
fearful work. It only makes my argument the stronger. 
We contend not for exclusiveness of knowledge. It 
was because learned, but misguided men, had an igno- 
rant mass to act upon, that these evils occurred. If 
they chose, before a people too illiterate to read or 
understand their Bibles, by solemn edicts to denounce 
religion; is it to be wondered at that they met with 
no reproof from those into whose minds religion had 
never poured its light? As it ever will be with human 
learning, unguided by a light from on high, their learn- 
ing made them the most pitiable of fools. To form a 
government not recognizing any kind of religion, was 
an experiment as rash and impracticable as to have de- 
prived the atmosphere of France of its oxygen, and then 
to have required the people to live and breathe under 
its influence. Theirs was an instance of learning reject- 
ing the aid of high moral and religious influences, and 
consequently doomed to destruction. This is not the 
learning communicated to our people in our Seminaries. 



16 

But it is contended that the system of Schools is 
all-sufficient for the wants of the people, without the 
aid of institutions for instruction in the higher branches 
of science and learning. And it is upon this ground 
that the opponents of Colleges principally fortify them- 
selveSi And yet nothing can be more fallacious than 
a system which overthrows itself. So surely as the 
acquisition of knowledge awakens the human mind, 
and kindles in it the desire of further acquisition, so 
surely does the multiplication of schools, and the ex- 
tension of general education render necessary the erec- 
tion of Colleges to supply the wants of those who are 
not willing to pause at the threshold. If those men 
were told of a law about to be passed, prohibiting any 
individual, however great his strength or powers of 
endurance, from performing more than the amount of 
labour in a day of which the most feeble man in the com- 
munity was capable, he would at once denounce it as 
an act of gross tyranny. What, he would exclaim, 
has God given that man strength and power, and will 
you by your laws prevent him from enjoying and 
profiting by them. If they were to be told that men 
however industrious and skilful in their business were 
to be prevented from acquiring more than a certain 
amount of wealth, and that to be measured by the 
possessions of the poorest man in his district, they 
would at once exclaim, what folly, what injustice. 
And yet they are prepared at once, without remorse. 



17 

to apply the Procrnstean system to the mind; to say 
to the aspiring youth, who thirsts to increase his store 
of knowledge, thus far it is well for you to go, but be- 
yond those limits, with our consent, you cannot pass. 
It is true, with assistance you may become an intel- 
lectual giant : but intellectual dwarfs better suit the 
institutions of our country. The body shall be free; 
the will shall be free; but the intellect shall be 
clogged. The bark shall dash at the pleasure of the 
mariner over the stormy sea, but we will, if we can, 
extinguish the stars by which he should guide her 
course. 

True it is that mighty men, the men of the sword, 
the pen, and the orator, have sprung from the ranks 
of the people without the aid of collegiate education, 
and have dazzled, delighted, and astonished the world. 
But have those men arisen where education was neg- 
lected by those around them ? Was nature the only 
glass at which they dressed themselves? Did natural 
genius inspire them with a knowledge of war, of laws 
and government of which they never had heard before ? 
No. They sprung up in highly intellectual commu- 
nities, and by force of intellect caught at once from 
others that which it had taken them toil and time to 
acquire, and surpassed their instructors. But the 
model had to be presented before them, or the statue 
never could have been made. Had Shakspear, Frank- 
lin and Henry been born among savage tribes, they 



18 

would have been noble savages ; but they would still 
have been only savages. 

It is through this indirect influence that Colleges 
greatly benefit the country in which they are sus- 
tained. Year after year they send forth through the 
land men qualified to discharge, efficientl}^, the duties 
of life ; to mingle in the thoroughfares of business ; to 
fill the professions ; bearing with them as they go, if 
they act up to the instructions which they have re- 
ceived, a high tone of sentiment, and infusing into the 
ranks with which they associate, the vigour of moral 
and intellectual power. Thus it is that our literary 
institutions repay the favours which they receive from 
the people. No cowled monks amongst them make of 
their learninc^ a selfish secret of the cloister : no macri 
are they to veil their mysteries from the common eye ; 
no pensioned occupants of fellowship, living in learned 
ease for learning's sake alone ; but active, vigorous 
minded men moving in close contact with their fellows, 
asking for no more room upon the common platform 
of the world than they have power to occupy, and 
claiming no exclusive privileges, save those which 
mind can conquer for itself These are the well dis- 
ciplined soldiers of civil liberty. With honest pride 
may our institutions of learning look upon the bands 
of generous youth who pour annually from their por- 
tals, and mingle in the ranks of the defenders of civil 
and religious liberty. Well may they say to their 



19 

countrymen, these are the pledges which we give you 
of our usefulness ; receive them with confidence ; their 
hearts are yours already, and whilst they are true to 
the teaching they have received within our walls, 
your trust will never be betrayed. 

But it has been contended that learned men are not 
the friends, or at least have not been the active cham- 
pions of freedom. If by this it is merely meant to 
assert that the book-worm has not been often found 
ranged upon freedom's battle-field, there could be no 
danger to my argument in admitting the proposition. 
It would be strange indeed to find them engaged in 
any kind of active enterprise. But if it is intended 
to assert that the man of education, the man of en- 
larged intellect, has been found to shrink from his 
compatriots in the hour of danger, I beg leave to deny 
the proposition unreservedly. I do not mean to con- 
tend that learning and freedom are synonymous terms. 
That if the eldest son of a despot happened to be a 
learned man, he would of necessity, on his father's 
decease, set free his people and convert his govern- 
ment into a republic. Far from it. It is most proba- 
ble he would use his learning for the purpose of 
consolidating and increasing his power. I do not 
deny that learned men have been found upon the side 
of the oppressor. But I have yet to learn that intelli- 
gent and intellectual men are the safest and easiest 
subjects upon which to exercise oppression. And 



20 

where, as in our Republic, the learned and educated 
man mingles in daily intercourse with the people of 
whom he forms a part, where is it that he has arrayed 
himself against their rights ? And those revolutions 
in which the purely unlettered man has taken the 
lead, for what purposes have they been undertaken ? 
and how have they generally ended? They have 
generally been revolts occasioned by mere physical 
suffering, and have ended sometimes in a temporary 
removal of the grievance complained of — sometimes 
by the dispersion and overthrow of those who rose to 
right themselves. But little other benefit has resulted 
to the actors. Still less to mankind at large. 

But those two glorious Revolutions which were not 
based upon mere want of bread, or actual deprivation 
of property ; revolutions in which encroachment was 
resisted before actual oppression had commenced; 
where keen-sighted vigilance over popular rights, per- 
ceived and arrested the blow aimed at them, before it 
had acquired the velocity which would have rendered 
it irresistable ; revolutions which have been the watch- 
words of struggling man throughout the world. The 
Revolution which drove the Stuarts from the throne 
of England, and that which drove the British king 
from all control over these Colonies, were they planned 
or carried through by the ignorant and unlettered ? 
Those indeed were revolutions effected by and based 
upon moral power ; and their precedents will be quo- 



21 

ted, and their influence felt, whenever and wherever 
man may be driven to the assertion of his rights. Is 
there any evidence in history to show that even Crom- 
well, mighty as he afterwards became, comprehended 
the necessity of resisting the levying of ship-money, at 
the outset, or that that necessity to him appeared 
strong enough to rouse him to actual resistance ? 
None that I have been able to see. But there was 
one man, a graduate of a University ; a man of for- 
tune and a man of leisure, who read the classics in 
the sweet retirement of the country ; who brought the 
experience of the past to bear upon the present, and 
who saw that to precipitate the coming of the tempest 
was the surest way to render its rage innocuous. 
Surrounded by his few and sterling friends, all of 
them men of learning and acuteness, in the face of 
astonished England, he braved the crown in the plen- 
itude of its power. Startled by this bold example, 
the public mind aroused itself into an inquiry into 
public rights ; hints of the rights of the people began 
to be murmured, and that man shaped these murmurs 
into words of mighty import. Borne down for awhile 
by unrighteous decisions he still persisted. When a 
Parliament was assembled, he was there to stand by 
his country and cheer her with his eloquence. Broad 
and deep were laid in the public mind the foundation 
for the mighty events that were to follow — mighty 

the onward impulse given to the nation. When hos- 

2 



22 

tilities between the king and the country actually 
commenced, that man was in the field acting the part 
of a brave and skilful soldier ; and finally on the bat- 
tle-field he sealed his devotion with his blood. He 
had lived the true and generous friend of the people, 
and he died in their cause. And since that day his 
name has been one of the watchwords of English and 
American freedom. In the days of the Revolution, 
his course was taken as a precedent ; and when that 
Revolution was successfully terminated, he took his 
place in the public mind with Washington, Franklin, 
Jefferson, and the other bright stars of that day ; — and 
at the present hour, the American statesman need not 
blush to acknowledge that he has taken for his model 
the English patriot, John Hampden ! 

Such was one of the men whom an English Uni- 
versity sent to dwell amongst the people. None can 
doubt, that although Cromwell, with his red right 
hand, darted the bolt which drove the Stuarts from 
the throne, the fire in which it was forged was kindled 
by Hampden : — that if Cromwell and his ironsides, by 
their physical power, scattered the armies of the king, 
the moral power of Hampden evoked the spirit which 
rendered those victories profitable and enduring : — 
that if the cannon of Cromwell prostrated the throne, 
the surviving spirit of Hampden, caused to be erected 
a Temple of British Freedom upon its ruins. 

Such is the difference between physical and moral 



23 

power! When the fierce Soldiery are mouldering, 
and their corslets and sabres rusting in the grave, the 
spirit of the Patriot still has its watchtower in each 
freeman's heart, ready to evoke new heroes from the 
ranks of the people to battle for their rights. Thus 
that race, which with impunity exhumed and insulted 
the remains of Cromwell, found in the name of Hamp- 
den a spell-word of power which a second time closed 
the hearts of Englishmen against them. 

But were those who planned the second and might- 
ier Revolution, among the ignorant and illiterate ? A 
revolution, surpassing in its consequences all that the 
most sanguine ever dared to prophecy. Were they 
Tells, or Massaniellos, or Hofers; — honest friends of 
liberty, true as steel and fearless as their swords, but 
ignorant of forms of government, who laid the founda- 
tions of this mighty fabric deep on the living rock? 
Was it such men as they who arranged this glorious 
galaxy of States, into which star after star has rolled, 
and holds each its even way unfelt except in the in- 
crease which it makes to the splendour of the whole ? 
Who planned that mighty moral bond, stronger than 
triple steel, which binds together mighty and indepen- 
dent States ; which throws its soft yet strong embrace 
around each addition to the band, and becomes at 
once a part of its nature ? Who formed, when the 
country was but small, a Constitution which has been 
respected and unbroken by twenty-six, now twenty- 



24 

eight, States of conflicting interests; States, whose 
principal tenancy in common is in the glorious battle- 
fields of the Revolution, and whose undivided and 
indivisible freehold is in the grave of their Washing- 
ton? 

They have read the history of our Revolution to 
little purpose, who do not know that many of the pro- 
minent men of that day brought all there was of the 
learning and wisdom of their age to the mighty work 
they had in hand. Scholars as ripe and patriots as pure 
as Hampden were there, bending all their energies to the 
task before them. And nobly did they accomplish it. 
Read the histories of the Signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, and you will find a large proportion to 
have been graduates of Colleges. Learning and ex- 
perience had taught the men of that day the value of 
moral influences, and -upon them they based their 
work. That moral influence which rallies men to 
fight like heroes, and pour out their blood like water, 
in defence of a tattered flag, the emblem of a principle, 
who would hold their lives too dear to be risked in the 
defence of any earthly treasure: those principles of 
love and moral suasion, under which the old thirteen 
States were bound together, but which like fire in- 
creasing in intensity by communication, holds in bonds 
of love and confidence the hearts of twenty millions 
of freemen, whose territory must be spanned by an 
arch springing from the blue Pacific wave, and ending 



25 

among the hoarse surges of the Atlantic coast. That 
noble principle which prompts us to hold to our 
hearts, and appropriate as our own, all that is great 
and good in by-gone ages, which time can neither dim 
nor destroy ; — a principle which causes the names of 
Trenton, Princeton and Monmouth, to thrill through 
the bosom of the youngest American, with a sense as 
keen as ever the trumpet's note sent through the bo- 
soms of those who trod the ice-bound sod of the one, 
or dyed with their blood the burning sands of the 
other. 

Such, under God, were some of the moral forces 
brought to bear in erecting and consolidating this glo- 
rious structure. Under these influences it has stood 
firm; and may, with the blessing of God^ stand firm 
for ever. Substitute in their places mere physical 
force, and a few years would present you with a head- 
less trunk and gigantic, dissevered members, writhing 
in the agony of death. The earth would remain, but 
the Sun that warmed, and invigorated, and rendered 
it the Paradise of freedom, would be blotted out from 
the heavens. 

Were men of learning then recreant in the hour of 
their country's need ? No ! Scarce a battle-field where 
they did not shed their blood — no council-board at 
which they were not present. But need I to discuss 
this subject further in the vicinity of that venerable 
institution, whose walls have been shaken with the 



26 

thunders of hostile artillery ? through whose fields the 
war-steed has dashed with blood-stained hoof? who 
gave up her staff and her stay to her country, when 
her WiTHERSPOoN wended his way to the First Con- 
gress, to pledge " life, fortune, and sacred honour, in 
behalf of the land of his adoption ; and who gave the 
first fruits of her academic labours, when her Stock- 
ton affixed his name to the same glorious instrument. 

And are these things so? Is the miracle which our 
country presents to the world, in point of fact no 
miracle at all, but simply the result of the application 
of moral and religious causes, made by the wisdom of 
our ancestors under the most happy circumstances ? 
Is it necessary, in order to preserve these blessings 
that the public mind should be refined, and knowledge 
extended to the many, instead of being as heretofore 
confined to the few ? If so, how shall we best minister 
to the interests of our country ? By cherishing our 
Colleges, those reservoirs of pure waters, builded by 
the hand of wisdom ; which so benignly pour their 
invigorating and perennial streams through the land. 

Cherish that venerable Institution in whose behalf 
we are here assembled. One hundred years sit lightly 
on her brow. A hundred years in which the gigantic 
efforts of the human mind have displayed themselves 
with startling and electrical rapidity. A hundred 
years during which more free principle has been 
evolved, and more pernicious error exploded, than in 



27 

the thousand that preceded them. And yet she has 
been always equal to the requirements of her day. 
Light, more light, has been the incessant cry of the 
people ; and year after year she has opened wider and 
wider the windows of the mind. Founded under the 
reign of a king, she has been fully equal with the 
spirit of the age as the teacher of stern Republican 
principles. Men have been educated within her walls 
whose mighty works in the cause of freedom have 
made their names household words, where she per- 
chance is never mentioned. And yet like a kind and 
generous mother she glories in their honest fame, 
albeit it may eclipse her own. Suffering under wrong 
and neglect she has vindicated herself by pouring 
the rich treasures of her sons into the bosom of their 
country, and training them to dedicate themselves to 
her service ; and has forgotten that neglect in the 
sweet task of rearing others for that same bright 
career. Year after year for a century past, have her 
venerable Presidents, with streaming eyes and bleed- 
ing bosoms, given the parting charge and parting 
benediction to a band of bright-eyed youths about to 
sever long-cherished ties, and launch upon unknown 
seas ; — and when another year rolled round, those 
venerable men might see, pressing against the barriers 
that held them in, another band instinct with life, 
ambition and energy ; eager to follow their departed 
companions, careless of the paths, regardless of the 



28 

dangers, so they but lead to the rewards of an honour- 
able fame. 

Oh, my friends, how much vitality and vigour has 
this Institution transfused into the veins and arteries 
of our land, in the last hundred years. One hundred 
years of fast-clinging affections — one hundred years 
of heart-rendmg separations ! The winds of near one 
hundred autumns have stripped her of her leaves, but 
she has renewed them as they fell; and she now 
stands clothed in a glorious foliage, rich in bright 
hopes and future promises. And think you these 
associations will have no influence upon the destinies 
of our common country ? Aye, should the trumpet of 
discord ring through our land, from the North, from 
the South, from the East, from the West, brother will 
call unto brother ; strong hands and willing minds 
will be put to the work of reconciliation ; and when 
the storm has passed, and the bow of peace appears in 
the sky, beneath its arch will stand conspicuously 
displayed, that Ancient Hall, where learning and re- 
ligion were cherished in the mind, and that friendship 
which grows not dim with age, was kindled in the 
heart. Let but the future be what the past has been, 
and a grateful country, with loud acclaim, will pro- 
nounce this Hall of Science one of the strong pillars 
of Civil Liberty. 



29 

Gentlemen of the two Literary Societies : 

You are training yourselves to take an active, 
and I trust not inglorious, part in the affairs of a 
mighty nation. A nation whose physical power is 
tremendous, and whose growth has been so extraor- 
dinary as to baffle calculation for the future. A nation 
of boundless territory, and capable of supporting in 
comfort more than quadruple her present population. 
A nation free, generous and independent in their 
views. A nation, too, more under the influence of mind, 
than any nation that ever existed. Keen to investigate, 
and acute in their scrutiny ; but sure to let their 
actions go with their belief Over all this mighty 
land thought holds her throne, and she alone is privi- 
leged to wield her sceptre over the free. And mighty 
are her efforts. Go listen on your Atlantic shore 
when the fierce tempest rolls her billows on the beach, 
— ^go listen when the wild winds rave through your 
forests of a thousand years. It is but a harmless echo 
compared with the concentrated energy of a free and 
thinking people, when roused by some mighty thought 
they arm themselves for action. Where is the rock- 
bound coast which can resist the mighty billows of 
the popular will ; where the earth-fast oak that is not 
uprooted by its breath ? 

Such, my young friends, is a character of the people 
amongst whom you will act and move. How shall 
you prepare yourselves for usefulness and distinction 



30 

on this glorious theatre ? By cultivating your every 
power to its fullest extent. By attention to all your 
studies, for there are none of which you will not at 
some time wish to avail yourselves in after years. 
By cultivating a sound and healthy tone of moral and 
religious sentiment, which tells as much for the man 
as a well-toned instrument does for the musician. 
And finally, by adopting for your motto, " he will best 
serve who best loves his country." 

Farewell. The hour is come. The dream is past. 
The student has become the graduate. The youth 
has become the man ; and soon the dust of the high- 
ways of busy life will hide from our view the green 
fields of our college days. 



LIBRARY OF CONUKtb:> 



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